Liferafts - a summary

To my mind the seat belt comparison is a valid one

The probability of an accident should not be the driving factor for having either belts or rafts, it is simply your insurance policy should the unlikely event happen.

I have never needed a seat belt, but fully accept it's necessity.

Surely the Titanic has one lesson for us all, that is, the unthinkable can happen, and if it does, you are better off if you have an insurance against this.

With respect to whether liferafts work as well as seatbelts, I think there is a parrallel here, a badly configured seat belt can cause unnecessary injury, even life threatening, injury, but where sensibly deployed will on average be a great aid, the same applies to life rafts, I have fully taken on board the need to step up into a life raft, as the Fastnet experience showed that those who deployed the liferaft because they felt overwhelmed (as opposed to the boat was sinking) put themselves at more risk, than those who stayed with a damaged (but floating) boat.

So to me it's a no brainer, I can imagine circumstances where I would be jolly grateful for a Plan C, and I do not want to find myself treading water too far from shore wishing I had bought the life raft, or trying to explain to friends that it was just bad luck we were in a situation where hypothermia is now taking it's toll.
 
Sorry to come back on the seat belt issue. Firstly there is a measurable probability of an accident happening. Every day all over the country to all kinds of people. And every day lives are saved by seat belts and airbags, so they are clearly effective. But they are passive features once you have decided to wear them. The other key difference with road incidents is that you may have no (or little) control over them and they are by their nature sudden and catastrophic, so difficult or impossible to avoid.

This is all very different from sailing, except perhaps where there is catastrophic failure.

Can't understand how you can say probability is not the driving factor in the same sentence as calling it an insurance policy. If there is no probability of an accident there is no need for insurance! Insurance is all about probability, which is why higher risk (probability) equals higher premium!

I, too can imagine circumstance where I might be grateful for a liferaft, but I hope it stays in the imagination as it does for most yachtsmen who adopt a strategy of avoiding getting into that position in the first place. If you are unhappy about your ability to avoid the situations, or actively seek out risky situations, then by all means buy a liferaft.
 
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Similarly, we all know that a boat can sink very quickly from just a small hole, but again there is limited or no evidence that this actually happens.

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You have obviously never heard of instances where propshafts have departed the vessel after breaking free from the gearbox couplings, leaving a nice round underwater hole in the stern gland. The location often means once the gland is submerged internally the chances of plugging the opening are slim. I have heard of at least 2 such occurences where the boats sank but fortunately not "offshore".
 
Thanks, Oldhand. I have heard of such events, but as you say, not offshore. They do not show up in any reliable statistics. We could draw up a huge list of possible causes of water ingress and probably find examples of all of them in peoples memories. However, as I say finding any reliable evidence that such events result in the vessel foundering in a a way that requires using a liferaft is problematic.
 
Good summary.

You might also consider the role of a liferaft for ocean sailing. This has changed. Years ago, there were occasions (the Baileys, Steve Callahan) when people had to survive for months aboard a liferaft. These days, with an EPIRB and maybe a sat-phone, the liklihood is that you'll get picked up within 48 hours from almost anywhere in the world. So ocean liferafts can be simpler and designed to last less long.
 
I never ever had to deploy my reserve canopy when parachuting, and statistically I probably didn't need to carry one, but would not jump without one. I think yachtsmen carry a liferaft for very much the same reasons. In extremis, however unlikely its actual occurrence, it gives you an extra option. That is a great psychological comfort regardless of the likelihood of use. Proper education/ crew briefing is what prevents its premature use.

I personally don't like the seatbelt analogy. Rapid deceleration is an ever present risk in a moving vehicle. You don't want to be the bit thats keeps going when everything else stops. Seatbelts ARE an everyday lifesaver. Life rafts are not.

Tim
 
There is also a measurable probability of needing a life raft, hence regulations covering the number and quality fitted to commercial shipping. So I see similarity there.

Most people taking to a life raft would be in it because of events outside their control, (almost) nobody would start a boat trip in the knowledge that a life raft trip was likely. So again I see a similarity in having an insurance policy to deal with a life threatening crash or a sinking, both being unlikely but possible.

Going back to probability argument, I repeat, I have never needed a seat belt, I may never need one in my life, but from that I do not conclude I do not need one, I accept that I could be in a catastophic vehicule failure and insure against that to some extent by wearing a seat belt, the same way I carry a life raft to insure against the effects of a catastrophic boat failure.

Let's take this a step further, you probably accept the seat belt arguement because the numbers of crashes in cars is an impressive sizeable figure. However if you only drove 50 miles a year, the statistical chance of having to use the seatbelt are very small. But would you conclude that it was safe do dispense with the seat belt if you drive less than x miles a year ? Conversly, if the same x million drivers sailed 15,000 miles a year the statistical chances of needing a life raft be just as impressive

I stow a life raft, and wear a set belt in my car not because of the statistical risk, I take both measures because I need a plan C for a set of circumstances that would be catestrophic if I did not have a plan C.

With respect to avoiding situations needing a liferaft negating the need for one, is the same anti seatbelt arguement, that you don't need one if you drive carefully. We both know that life is not like that !
 
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Let's take this a step further, you probably accept the seat belt arguement because the numbers of crashes in cars is an impressive sizeable figure. However if you only drove 50 miles a year, the statistical chance of having to use the seatbelt are very small. But would you conclude that it was safe do dispense with the seat belt if you drive less than x miles a year ? Conversly, if the same x million drivers sailed 15,000 miles a year the statistical chances of needing a life raft be just as impressive

I stow a life raft, and wear a set belt in my car not because of the statistical risk, I take both measures because I need a plan C for a set of circumstances that would be catestrophic if I did not have a plan C.

With respect to avoiding situations needing a liferaft negating the need for one, is the same anti seatbelt arguement, that you don't need one if you drive carefully. We both know that life is not like that !

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To start with - seat belts - in a car you are more likely to have an accident due to someone else (as SWMBOs car was hit over easter I can vouch for that being a LARGE possibility) ... if you only drive 50 miles a year then I would ask why you have a car!! However, yes you are statistically unlikely to have an accident so in theory you wouldn't need a seatbelt, but due to the vast majority driving far more than that it is a LEGAL requirement to wear them in the front AND the back ... but - please note that Milkmen in floats do not need to wear seatbelts, neither (I think) do lorry drivers .... also, you don't need to wear them as a passenger on a coach or bus ...
I would parallel the car/seatbelt with the Mobo/liferaft .... rather than the more sedate sailyboat/liferaft ...

If you are sailing 15000 miles in a year then yes, your chances of needing the liferaft are much increased - so sense would say that it becomes higher on your list of priorities ...

I had the conversation with SWMBO and she concurs that for us, with the sailing that we do in the location and weather we sail in, the £500 min for a liferaft would be far better spent on preventing us needing the liferaft to start with ... so we will be looking at replacing the rigging this autumn ... and I'll start my campaign for a new mainsail for next year ... so thats nearly £2k in boat improvements for 2 years - which is a significant sum for many on here!
 
Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

I'm going to ignore the statistical side of things because we have inadequate statistics.
An alternative is to consider boat failure scenarios and their plausibilities.
1. Impact with object making significant hole. In view of the loss of containers at sea and occurrence of large floating objects (trees etc. ). At night one often just cannot see and avoid this hazard.
2. Gear failure in bad weather coupled with severe waves or holing by mast that has not been jettisoned.
3. Swamping by rogue wave.
The list can go on.
I feel many of these scenarios are plausible, if you like forseeable.
Is a liferaft a reasonable safety measure for these risks?
On the whole I think so.
 
Re: Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

1. - Don't sail at night, be more vigilant or do not sail in areas likely to have semi submerged containors ...
2. - Don't go out in bad weather, get a decent set of boltcroppers or kit to make sure the mast is jettisoned asap if it does go over.
3. - Swamping by a rouge wave... ??! if in bad weather do you not have sprayhood up or the hatch closed? Surely that is just common sense!! I've sailed a dinghy with the whole lot a foot under the water, it popped back up with no problem - a yacht will have more immediate buoyancy than that.

2 of your 3 points are avoidable for the coastal sailor, the submerged containors is a concern for many, but I don't believe the risk to be high. The only yacht I've heard that sunk because it hit something hit a marked buoy .... !!
 
Re: Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

um well, i hit a massive semi-submerged floating wooden pontoon offshore, giant graunching noise tho fortunately a rapid check revealed no damage to rudders but v fortunate: it is not feasible that everyone on watch in empty sea still peers at the sea just ahead with hawk-like anticipation of a hazard.

Offshore, i think crew would run a mile from a boat with no liferaft.

AndrewB's point regarding actual required amounts of time likely in the raft these days is a good one. So perhaps a beter solution these days would be two okish liferafts rather than just one with loads of bells and whistles, to increase chances of at least one of them working.
 
Re: Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

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um well, i hit a massive semi-submerged floating wooden pontoon offshore, giant graunching noise tho fortunately a rapid check revealed no damage to rudders but v fortunate: it is not feasible that everyone on watch in empty sea still peers at the sea just ahead with hawk-like anticipation of a hazard.

[/ QUOTE ] Hmm - Offshore .... and what speed were you doing ??! You should approach a berth more slowly!! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

If I'm helming then I am watching the sea infront and to weather of the bow ... I appreciate this won't be 100% coverage during the "longer passages" ... but I certainly don't sail as many miles as you do in a year ....

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Offshore, i think crew would run a mile from a boat with no liferaft.

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Agreed!
 
Re: Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

Bout um 8knots i reckon.

Yep, 2 days in you just don't look forwards much, really, not like inshore where it only a touch more relaxed than the M25. It's fine for someone "on watch" to be checking some switches inside or pratting about with chartplotter, and simply not feasible to watch for a submerged thingy 100% of the time.

Not sure how much notice we'd have had anyway and ...trying to get around it mite have caused damage - as it was the skeg keels kicked it down and the soggy thing didn't come back up quick enuf to hit rudders or props, it seems. But if we had hit it side on it cd have been different.

unless with v familiar/family/zero crew i think not having a liferaft mite leave one open to all sorts of sh!t - there was a brit boat owner prosecuted a while back for being an extreme example. A prosecutor would be able to find loads of experts saying liferaft is "normal" and if no liferaft then other safety measures would have to be that much tighter. Except er if you did end up wet, then they obviously weren't good enuf.
 
Re: Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

Unlucky incident ... lucky outcome!! ... 8Kn isn't that fast though - how easy was it to see the offending item after the incident? Would it have been feasible to have spotted it if someone was on lookout duty? (I know - you were 2 days in so you're unlikely to want that level of awareness, but this LR business was kicked up for a 70Nm passage ... which can be achieved during a single lot of daylight hours if you're sensible about when you go...
 
Re: Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

urg, i dunno: it was out of sight pretty fast so two of were left squawking about it being "massive" to others.

Another time I drove over a floating tree but which looked like me missing a few twigs by a nice wide margin.

I wd not blame anyone for not seeing something like those - nowhere near as visible as a buoy frinstance and after a while one gets a bit bored of dodging yet another resting seagull.

Nice liferaft isn't good news of course - it is ultimate giving up last resort: I have bought a few packs of Kollision Kit underwater epoxy to allow me to try fix (say) hole from snapped shaft or rudder and spose with catamaran we run double the risk (or maybe more) of damage due to floating things than equivalent length mono
 
Re: Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

Just to provide some real information, I did a quick scan of the MAIB site. At the level of "Preliminary Investigation", that is worth looking at but not worth a full report over the last 8 years there is not one example of a leisure yacht foundering to the point of requiring deployment of a liferaft.

Unfortunately not all the full reports are available on line and we do know of incidents where a yacht has foundered (Ouzo) or a liferaft was deployed (Hooligan), but I expect that when I get all the reports over the same period, the number of founderings will still be in single figures.

The MAIB is the most comprehensive source of data as it covers all reported accidents in UK waters and all accidents involving UK registered vessels anywhere in the world. The data is split into commercial vessels, Fishing craft and leisure craft (which includes not only yachts, but Dive Boats, RIBs, ski boats and rather oddly narrow boats!) Of course the key word is "reported" and the MCA and RNLI will have much better data on incidents that resulted in rescue action being required, but don't get reported as accidents.

When I first contributed to this thread my contribution was based primarily on my experience as an academic supervising research carried out by my students into Marine Management issues, particularly safety. I soon discovered how poor data was in general and in particular how poorly underpinned regulations and laws were by empirical evidence. In the commercial world, this has changed considerably for the better in recent years as reporting and regulating agencies have become stronger and more sophisticated, even if implementation is perhaps slower than we would like.

In the leisure boating field there is a real shortage of reliable data on which to base decisions, so there is a tendency to "do it anyway" as I pointed out in my description of the irrational requirements of the Greek register. I am just upgrading my former charter boat to my standards using the MCA category2 code as a guideline. You would be surpised at how much basic equipment, such as fire blanket, harness points, automatic lifejackets with proper harnesses, fuel shut off valve etc etc that I am fitting. I do, however have a 10 man ocean liferaft that costs 150 euros a year to service and if the rest of the charter fleet is anything to go by will never be used in anger!
 
Re: Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

Good stuff. 10-man is massive tho, praps consider 2x smaller? At least that way you don't have to sit with the tw&t that busted the gas pipe...
 
Re: Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

Looking at MAIB Leisure craft safety digest Issue 2 (Published in 2008) would you not agree that cases 14 and 17 would have benefitted from having a liferaft as an option of last resort ?

Case 12 also but you could sucessfully argue they should not have been offshore, even so, the hypothermia issue would have been delayed significantly.
 
Re: Reasons why a liferaft might be needed

Thanks for starting an interesting summary thread.

The problem with this subject is that most have made up their mind and do not appear prepared to listen to others opinions that may be made for probably different circumstances.

I have contributed/started threads before trying to list the relative importance of various pieces of safety equipment and the priorities vary dependant on type of sailing and type of boat.

Its good those that people do think about possible senarios.

I now always try to set an example to my crew by always wearing a lifejacket (unless it gets in the way of a suntan). This LJ is fitted with crotch straps and spray hood after completing the survival course, a waterproof handheld VHF is now clipped onto the LJ after the Ouzo incident and latest addition is a personal GPS EPIRB when I found it was not much more expensive than the replacement batteries for the boat EPIRB! Yet I commute to London on a motorcycle doing about 900mls every week where the risk factor must be 1,000,000x greater than leisure sailing. Its difficult for some to put risk in perspective and accept that nothing in life can protect you against 100% of eventualities.

Just one point though as correction IIRC there was the Hanse yacht that lost its rudder deploying a liferaft and the best one that we can all learn lessons from is the MAIB report (Safet Digest 2001 or 2002 I believe) on Creightons Naturally that abandoned ship in the Bay of Biscay on route to do the ARC. If you look closely enough there are a number of incidents where liferafts have been deployed including one IIRC where a person was killed when another jumped in or fell out of the rescue sling - sorry cannot remember exact details.

However lets encourage people to consider safety and equipment, post on threads their experiences and reasons but please lets leave skippers to make their own best decisions and remember that all the possible equipment could equal the total cost of some individuals boats.

This last bit is not aimed at you as your post are balanced and informative but a general comment to some of the more opinionated posters!!
 
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